Dropout issues,, Help!!!

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Axeslinger

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I'm tearing my hair out here!! I used to have alot of hair:(

I have a DAW with Win98 SE that I am running CWHS2002 on. The machine has an AMD 1.0gb processor with 256mb ram and a 40gb 7200 rpm HD.. And, I had a lousey SB live installed when I had the machine built because I couldn't decide what card to get and thought I would always be able to use SB live's midi later on down the road after upgrading the sound card.

The problems I'm having suddenly are this, I'm experiancing severe dropout at 3 tracks!!. I use NO plug ins The 3 tracks playing back are loop generated drums, a rythm track recorded with a Pod(rectifier) and a scratch lead track using the Pod,BBE362 and a Morley Bad horsie.

When I got the machine I went to http://www.bluelifeaudio.com/~pcconfig/ and followed the directions pertaining to my operating system as closely as possible. Surely this machine should operate better than this??
I was really expecting to get to 10-14 tracks before encountering any trouble.

And now,, I'm getting a 2 second delay when I arm a track for recording!! And ONLY when a track is armed.. That never was the case untill last night:(

Is this simply a bad card issue?? Will more ram alleviate the problems??.. I'm going NUTS trying to identify the problem guys.. Please help!!
 
I'm not completely familiar with Home Studio, but from reading posts on this BBS, it seems quite similar to Sonar. Therefore, I'll try and give you some suggestions.

First of all, it sounds like you have input monitoring enabled. Disable that. That should get rid of the delay, and probably will help with your playback problems.

Secondly, you can get more tracks than 3 with your setup and an SB Live. What drivers are you using? If you are using WDM drivers with Win 98, that could be a problem also. See if you can find in HS a checkbox that says "use MME drivers even when WDM drivers are available". Try checking that to force HS to use the MME drivers.

Lastly, if you are still having trouble, try increasing your buffer size or the number of buffers (i.e., your latency settings).
 
Thanks so much for the reply,, i had found the monitor input issue just prior to reading your post so that problem has been eliminated...:D

I picked up and installed another 256 mb of ram,, checked the use MME interface even when WDM drivers are available box and increased my buffers to maximinm..

It dropped out at 59.03 as I tried to record a 4th track with the 3 being muted..:(
 
RAM is not likely to be of much help. My understanding is that will be helpful with plug-ins, and you indicated you weren't using any. A second, dedicated HDD would have been more likely to help with this problem.

Secondly, muting a track is of no help either. A muted track uses as much resources as an unmuted track. If you want to lower resource usage, you need to archive the track, rather than mute it.

Here's some more suggestions -
- When was the last time you defragged your hard drive? You might try that.
- Have you ever tested you HDD to see what throughput you are getting? Is it performing as it should be?
- Is your hard drive running in DMA mode? If it is capable of this, make sure you have DMA enabled
- What bit depth and sample rate are you using?
- Cakewalk also suggests deleting your Aud.ini file. (The program will recreate a new one when you restart it; however you may need to tell the program where your wave files are located, since this information is contained in the aud.ini).
 
In addition to the previous tweaks,have you shut off all the programs running in the background?
If you use internal sounds for playback only you can move the latency slider way up and that should help.
If you want to trigger those sounds by keyboard as you play/record this will severely limit you.
I have only 1 hard drive and working within the limits of my system have gotten 20+ tracks with a few plug ins.
Use your aux sends when possible to conserve resources.

I've been through some frustration too,stick with it and good luck.
 
I don't know if it would help to mention that the resource leds in the bottom right hand of the screen are showing completely different usages.. The CPU LED rarely goes above 3% while the Disk LED is commonly in the high green to yellow stage. i have seen it drop out when well within the green territory:(

All background programs are off.. I'm really at a loss..

How do I test my HD for throughput???

And how do I tell if my hard drive is running in dma mode?
I defrag weekly and stillhave 36 gb out of 40 so as you can see I haven't even had a chance to clutter up my HD yet;)
 
How do I test my HD for throughput??? And how do I tell if my hard drive is running in dma mode?
Click to expand...


For DMA - go to Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager. Click the plus sign next to Disk Drives. Click on your Hard Drive to highlight it and select Properties. Choose the tab for settings, and there should be a checkbox for DMA.

There are several disk benchmark utilities available on the web. Try a search. I think Sandra is one that has a good reputation. I believe there is a lite version of Sandra that is shareware or free.

Do the DMA thing first, that might just do the trick for you.
 
P.S. Did you try deleting your aud.ini file as suggested?
 
The DMA is checked and I apologize for being such a computer illiterate but I don't know how to delete aud.ini(safely anyhow)

Acidrock is getting 20+ tracks WITH plug ins????
How can there be such a disparity in machines??
 
I'm a computerphobe but I think it maybe a hardware issue like the motherboard. Why don't you post your complete specs on the computer forum and let them have a go at it.
Let me repeat MY LATENCY SLIDER IS WAY UP.
I use an external synth when I record midi but use the soft synths at playback.
No input monitoring no realtime softsynth playing.
I learned to work around my system.

Also what bitrate/sampling rate are you working at?I would suggest 16/44.1.
 
16/44.1 it is..

My latency slider is to the far right 312.5/2187.3
Motherboard =Microstar MS-K7T266Pro Socket?

Ruh Roh!!! Seagate 7200rpm/40GB HD:(
Also, dropout tends to occur mostly whenever I do a Pinch scream and pull the bar sharp or divebomb
 
My specs

PIII 933
95 GIG 7200 RPM HD
ASUS CUS-L2 MOBO
512 MB SD-RAM
AUDIOPHILE 2496
MIDISPORT 2X2

This is an okay setup but hardly optimal
I record at 24/44.1
 
I'm have no idea what's going on there.Thats why I suspect the hardware.
RPM is not the endall in drive specs there are other issues but I'm not the one to get that information from.
I agree that you should be getting a much better track count.

My next unit will be a prebuilt fire breathing monster and I'll avoid the pitfalls that so many of us have fallen into.

KEEP AT IT BETTER LUCK SOON
 
Well, this morning it won't play back for more than 3 sec. without dropping out so I'm also convinced now that it is a hardware problem. So I'm crating it up and taking it back to he shop that built it:mad:
I'm afraid a lot of work and a couple months time may be wasted:(
 
Just to bring this to a conclusion and possibly help someone else further down the road..

The shop that built the machine ran benchmark tests on the Seagate HD and found it to be running at approximately 25% capacity..
It was replaced with another brand of hard drive and..

Drive index -Seagate 6597

Drive index- Maxtor26573

Some of the other benchmark tests were astronomically higher for the Maxtor also.
So I guess this too can be added to the long list of Seagate HD horror stories.

Just in playing back what files I do have in this machine ,I haven't seen the Disk resource meter nor the CPU meter top 6% yet:D:D:D:D

Thanks for your help guys;)
 
Glad to hear you got it resolved. It sounded like a hard drive problem, hence the degragging, DMA and benchmark testing suggestions. There was no doubt you should have been getting better performance based on the specs of your equipment.
 
Now that you mention it:)

I just uploaded a clip to my page that I had been working on just prior to the CPU taking a dump on me

It's :57 long "Nemisis(Time)"

http://www.guitar.com/artists/Axeslinger

it's about 60% complete..... suggestions???
(Besides give up the guitar:(??)
 
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